how to avoid spammers

Here are some simple tips on how to minimise your risk of getting spam.

treat your email address like you do your credit card
Safeguard it very carefully and keep it private. Don't post your email address on the Web. Spammers use special harvesting tools that allow them to scour the web and search for text links that contain email strings like 'example@domainname.whatever'. Once they find an email address it is dumped into a mailing database to be used for sending spam. If you must post your email address on your website, ask your web designer to display it as a picture or a graphic icon. These are much more difficult for spammers' harvesting robots to collect as they only capture text links.

never respond to spam messages
Responding to a spam message is a recipe for disaster. It only confirms to spammers that you have a valid email address. Resist the temptation.

never try to opt-out of spam messages
Don't be tempted to respond to a spammer's opt-out clause – even if it has a professional statement along the lines of “Reply to this message with “remove” in the subject line to be removed from our database”. Why – because they're lying. It just verifies to the spammer that your email address is active and it can be resold to other spammers.

be careful about where you submit your email address
Before you decide to submit your email address to a website or a mailing list, check out their Privacy Statement or their Terms of Use. These documents should detail how they plan to use your information. You just want to make sure that your details are kept secure and confidential, and not resold to other parties. (And believe us, it's done).

choose an unusual email address – even an alphanumeric combination
One of the common ways that spammers collect email addresses is by randomly generating name or dictionary combinations for ISP domains. The success rate on this method is very hit and miss – but we can guarantee that they do collect millions of addressees this way. Our advice is to think carefully about what email address you choose.

use an anti-spam filter
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